ProTip: What’s your EPH?

ProTip: What is your EPH?

You can’t put a number on fun. Or can you? How much fun should your guests be having at your water park? That’s where good planning comes in.

EPH stands for Entertainment Units Per Hour, and is the method we strongly prefer to use at ProSlide® to determine how much “stuff” we give guests to do. An Entertainment Unit (EU) is simply one ‘experience’ — a trip down a slide, a dip in the pool, some play structure time. Obviously the EPH directly impacts guest experience and overall cost — higher EPH means that more attractions/ experiences need to be provided, keeping guests happy with more choices and less waiting, but also increasing costs.

So how much fun is enough? Our experience suggests that an ideal EPH ranges from 1.5 to 3, and it is widely agreed that a good water park should offer at least 2 EPH. Except for kids: for high-energy kids’ areas, we recommend 8-10 EPH.

And that’s where the real fun begins: EPH is a combination of attendance, ride capacity, ride mix, seasonality, peak-in-park and several other factors.